Follow the life of Steve, Susie and Scotland on their adventure through the Crocodile Rock. 3 members of society looking for happiness, seeking opportunities to change themselves for the better. Soon realising they don’t belong within the confounds of societies norms, Heather (The owner of the Crocodile Rock) helps them figure out how to love themselves for who they are.

Goodbye Crocodile Rock was the first show that I have written and directed. Using the musical genius of Elton John, the performance was a freakshow of sorts. It displaying the cast who are supposedly ‘normal’ people, as ‘freaks.’ The significance of using Elton John’s music emerged from the rehearsal room. At the end of each session, we had a group singalong to Your Song. This magical, beautiful moment transcended into the confounds of Goodbye Crocodile Rock. I wanted to help the audience to love themselves, to share the same beautiful moments that we created in the rehearsal room whilst watching the show. My main goal whilst creating this show was to help other people to become happy and content with who they are.

I fell into many political pitfalls during the making of this piece, tackling issues such as self-acceptance, transgender, alcoholism and racism. The piece demanded me to take care when dealing with this type of material, making me question every decision I made. This was important as I didn’t want to offend anyone in the audience going through the same issues as the characters my cast were portraying. I wanted moments I created with my cast to be honest, therefore I extensively researched issues regarding the problems I was portraying on stage. The cast were not musically trained but I used all of their talents to create a show to help them love themselves, we had rehearsal sessions for learning the music with our pianist, Kacie Rickells. With these sessions, I saw my cast grow with confidence in themselves, one small step towards loving themselves.

Directing Goodbye Crocodile Rock was a unique experience, I learnt very much from working with a cast of varying sizes, working with musicians and sound technicians. Learning to do the lighting design myself and working the lighting and sound desk during the performance. It was an incredible learning curve because I had to put all my faith in the cast, an incredibly rich feeling.